Shooting III 



like currants, and had just a tiny seed in the 

 middle of their sweet pulp. 



But for beauty, no haw that ever bloomed 

 can compare with spicewood berries, or those 

 of the strawberry bush. Both are waterside 

 growths, somewhat uncanny, and super- 

 stitiously held to possess magic properties. 

 The strawberry bush sometimes grows to 

 be a small tree. Spicewood is always a 

 shrub. The leaves of it are coarse, both 

 in shape and fiber — so coarse they seem ex- 

 crescences upon the slender, graceful twigs, 

 so round, smooth, and brown, with tiny 

 white freckles all over the brown. There 

 is no smell to either bloom or leaf, but the 

 wood itself is delicately fragrant. It is a 

 subtle scent, hinting of sandalwood, and cam- 

 phor and sassafras. The blossoms, which are 

 yellow and fringed like knops of spun sun- 

 shine, are stemless and come out early, before 

 the leaf-buds start, slipping out at the joints of 

 last year's twigs. About one in three comes 

 to fruit. The leaves fall early though they 

 are so laggard in coming out. Any time after 

 September the spicewood thicket stands a 

 netted blur of clean brown tensile stems, be- 

 set or rather inlaid with translucent fairy ovals 

 of clear royal scarjet. 



It is bad luck to break the spicewood in 

 blossom, but whipping the water with a branch 



